In the golden days of mailrooms and mullets, companies like yours probably had a dedicated in-house staff member whose sole job was to organise everyone’s printing.

These were the experts, and they knew everything about who and where to go to get the best outcome for their company’s print.

But, with the rise of digital marketing and social media, the printing needs to most (if not all) organisations have changed.

A paperless office may be the dream for the future, but businesses will always need printed products and collateral at some point.

But who does do the job, and how much do they actually know?

The responsibilities for print management too often lie with admin assistants or marketing managers — so someone who is unfamiliar with printing, and has 100 other things to do.

So if your marketing manager is trying to take responsibility for five things at once, they can’t know everything — especially the finer quirks of printing.

But having your printing managed by someone who isn’t an expert leaves you open to a number of risks:

• Not knowing the value of printing — do you know if you want low volume digital print, or large volume offset print? Which option is better suited to your business? If you don’t know, you risk choosing the uneconomical option — which could potentially cost your business thousands.
• Missing opportunities — do you know of every single product and service available to you? If not, you risk wasting time and effort on an unsuitable option, or missing out on one that would be great for your business.
• Typos and proofreading errors — with electronic media, you can edit and re-edit to your heart’s content. In printing, you only get one shot. If there’s a mistake, then you have to reprint the entire batch. Not only does this increase the dollar value of the print job, it’s wasteful, environmentally irresponsible, time consuming, and can result in a lower quality print due to the need to recoup the costs.
• Incorrect file types — digital files might be flexible and versatile on the screen, but not every file type is suitable for print. Images that are of low resolution, or an incorrect format, or an unsuitable colour resolution will produce poor quality in print.
• Not knowing what to look for — do you know why some things look good on screen but not on paper? Or how to adjust colours to fix that? Without specialised print knowledge it’s often difficult to detect the fault in the process, and improve for next time.
• Having to make adjustments — keep having to change your work to suit the needs of the printer? If the piece you want to print isn’t working, you need to find a solution that has to adjust to

All these are just some of the costly mistakes made by inexperienced print managers.

Ultimately a business can find that an ad-hoc approach to print management can cost thousands of dollars in lost time and efficiency.

One of our clients found themselves in a similar situation.

As a multinational car company, they required a specific layout of business card that had to be adapted to 270-300 employees. They were facing huge costs if they were to pay an agency or graphic artist to do it.

While this company had the capacity to do it themselves, the time spent setting up and completing the task would have been costly.

In addition, it would have been a waste of their marketing team’s resource allocation, which could be better spent promoting the business in other areas.

So what was our car company to do?

Co-sourced printing: avoid hidden costs with a dedicated print partner

In order to find the right manufacturing process, for the right application, for the right outcome, organisations need to have a closer relationship with their printer.

By engaging Inkifingus with this unique problem, we developed a co-sourced printing process that allowed the car company to get their business cards mass produced and delivered to them in no time at all.

We created an online template for their business card and an easily-accessible spreadsheet of names. This enabled them to more effectively double-check information before submitting the final print order.

Not only did this solution reduce the likelihood of human error, it improved resourcing costs for the business. By reducing the time wasted on multiple proof readings, and in turn the number of print orders with errors in the copy, the company was able to reduce the printing and resourcing cost of their print management, and generated a better product result.

They were also able to access unique, specialised solutions specific to their business, thanks to the comprehensive knowledge of their Inkifingus print partner.

If you’d like to experience the same benefits, give me a call on 0400 024 905 to talk about outsourcing your print management.

Have you considered Co-sourced printing?

From designing the job, printing, collating, and binding it based on your requirements, and delivering the finished product to your doorstep.

At Inkifingus, we have a dedicated team of printing specialists, all with their own areas of expertise, to help businesses achieve the best possible print outcome through our co-sourced printing model.

Through co-sourced printing you can achieve:

1. A more cost-effective approach to print management;
2. Ongoing print management support from an expert printer, including advice and ideas for ensuring the best quality printed product;
3. Design and concept creation from experienced designers, and printers who understand how to get the best message across through print; and
4. A streamlined printing process tailored to the needs of your organisation.

Contact Inkifingus today if you would like to know more about the benefits that outsourced printing can offer your business.

I’ve often observed that at many small to medium businesses, print management is often delegated to the newest, most junior team member. Now, I understand that it’s all too easy to hand off print management to someone else. But first, let me tell you why this approach is a really bad idea.